Transformers 4: Michael Bay is back

After Transformers 3, Michael Bay claimed he was done with the series, yet many felt there wasn’t anyone else who could do the franchise justice.

Yes, his next film is going to be Pain and Gain, a smaller movie with a smaller budget, but you don’t think he’s going to give up big blockbusters for the art-house world, do you?

With Bay, more is always more, and you knew whether he ever came back to the series or not, subtle has never been in his vocabulary. You want it big? You want it head-splittingly loud? You want huge explosions and sexy women under waterfalls? Bay’s just the guy to do it.

Well now the news has exploded all over the ‘Net that apparently the next Transformers will not be in anybody else’s hands, and Michael Bay will indeed be back for number four, which is now slated for a June 29, 2014 release. At first, you could blow this off as fanboy wishful thinking, but it’s been officially announced through Paramount that Bay signed a two-picture deal for Pain and Gain, then Transformers.

Adam Goodman, the President of Paramount’s Film Group told Variety, “Michael has been working on Pain and Gain for a number of years but has patiently waited for perfect casting to trigger a start. Clearly his patience has paid off as we couldn’t be more excited about this combo.”

Goodman is referring to Mark Wahlberg, who will star in Pain and Gain with Dwayne “The Rock” Nelson. Producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura also confirmed for MTV News and The Hollywood Reporter, “Michael’s going to direct it. It will be in the summer of 2014.”

It’s been reported that Paramount was holding Transformers 4 as a bargaining chip to greenlight Pain and Gain, a passion project of Bay’s for years, and who knows if he was forced to do another Transformers to get his little dream movie made.

Another interesting wrinkle? The Hollywood Reporter claims the fourth installment in the franchise will be a reboot, even though producer Di Donaventura says there’s no story yet, but the next film will be “a hybrid because there’s still continuity going on, and there will be a lot of new cast. Whether there’s anybody from the first cast, we don’t even know yet. But it’s going to be a whole new story.”